Key Takeaways
- • iConnections hosted its 2025 Global Alts New York Conference on June 9–10 at The Glasshouse, bringing together top allocators, fund managers, and thought leaders across alternative investments with a full 104-page research report covering all sessions.
- • Prominent speakers included Cliff Asness (AQR), Bruce Richards (Apollo), Kenneth Tropin (Graham Capital), Daniel Loeb (Third Point), and Josh Wolfe (Lux Capital), addressing macro trends including AI risk, volatility resurgence, and emerging investment opportunities.
- • Key thematic focus areas included macro alpha resurgence, AI as both opportunity and systemic risk, GP staking strategies, private credit expansion beyond direct lending, defense-tech investment, and cryptocurrency inflows potentially totaling $20–30 trillion in assets.
- • Session topics ranged from family office investment strategies favoring U.S. markets to second-order impacts of AI investments, Chinese AI positioning, and wealth management evolution driven by AI, defense-tech, and longevity sectors.
- • The conference underscored market bifurcation: dispersion and volatility are creating alpha opportunities for sophisticated allocators, while passive investing and machine-driven strategies are reshaping traditional hedge fund competitive positioning.
Summary
The 2025 Global Alts New York Conference, held June 9–10 at The Glasshouse in New York City and hosted by iConnections, convened the alternative investment community to discuss structural market shifts, emerging alpha opportunities, and technological disruption reshaping capital allocation. The two-day event featured over 50 speakers and produced a comprehensive 104-page research report covering all sessions, providing institutional investors, family offices, and fund managers with granular insights into current market dynamics.
A central theme emerging from the conference was the resurgence of macro alpha and volatility-driven opportunities. Kenneth Tropin of Graham Capital highlighted a quadrupling of macro interest recently, signaling renewed appetite for macroeconomic positioning strategies. Complementing this, ALPS Capital addressed the potential for volatility to return with force, suggesting that periods of elevated market dispersion could create differentiated returns for skilled managers. This environment contrasts sharply with the low-volatility, passive-index dominated period that preceded it, indicating structural shifts in how allocators assess risk and return.
Artificial intelligence dominated discussion but with notably divergent perspectives on its implications. Bruce Richards of Apollo characterized AI as the "biggest risk" and a "blockbuster moment" for those failing to adapt, while Cliff Asness of AQR described the firm's response as a "partial white flag to machines," acknowledging both the opportunity and the existential competitive challenge posed by machine-driven investment strategies. Josh Wolfe of Lux Capital provided a contrasting lens, focusing on how to identify winners in defense-tech sectors benefiting from AI advancement. VC investors were also assessed for their positioning around second-order impacts of AI, reflecting the view that primary AI infrastructure plays have already been widely monetized.
Additional investment themes reflected the conference's forward-looking allocation guidance. Discussions around GP staking were framed as "the best of the best," suggesting renewed confidence in hedge fund manager compensation structures and alignment mechanisms. Private credit expanded beyond traditional direct lending, with panelists indicating the sector's potential for significant growth. Defense-tech and longevity-focused investments gained prominence as secular growth themes, while Chinese AI investments were examined as a potential winner category despite U.S.-China geopolitical tensions. Family office strategies revealed a persistent preference for U.S.-domiciled assets, while cryptocurrency allocations were discussed in the context of potentially $20–30 trillion in assets flowing into digital assets.
The conference underscored a bifurcating investment landscape where macro dispersion, geopolitical fragmentation, and technological transition are creating measurable alpha opportunities for adaptable allocators while simultaneously raising existential questions about traditional active management's viability in an AI-accelerated environment.
A central theme emerging from the conference was the resurgence of macro alpha and volatility-driven opportunities. Kenneth Tropin of Graham Capital highlighted a quadrupling of macro interest recently, signaling renewed appetite for macroeconomic positioning strategies. Complementing this, ALPS Capital addressed the potential for volatility to return with force, suggesting that periods of elevated market dispersion could create differentiated returns for skilled managers. This environment contrasts sharply with the low-volatility, passive-index dominated period that preceded it, indicating structural shifts in how allocators assess risk and return.
Artificial intelligence dominated discussion but with notably divergent perspectives on its implications. Bruce Richards of Apollo characterized AI as the "biggest risk" and a "blockbuster moment" for those failing to adapt, while Cliff Asness of AQR described the firm's response as a "partial white flag to machines," acknowledging both the opportunity and the existential competitive challenge posed by machine-driven investment strategies. Josh Wolfe of Lux Capital provided a contrasting lens, focusing on how to identify winners in defense-tech sectors benefiting from AI advancement. VC investors were also assessed for their positioning around second-order impacts of AI, reflecting the view that primary AI infrastructure plays have already been widely monetized.
Additional investment themes reflected the conference's forward-looking allocation guidance. Discussions around GP staking were framed as "the best of the best," suggesting renewed confidence in hedge fund manager compensation structures and alignment mechanisms. Private credit expanded beyond traditional direct lending, with panelists indicating the sector's potential for significant growth. Defense-tech and longevity-focused investments gained prominence as secular growth themes, while Chinese AI investments were examined as a potential winner category despite U.S.-China geopolitical tensions. Family office strategies revealed a persistent preference for U.S.-domiciled assets, while cryptocurrency allocations were discussed in the context of potentially $20–30 trillion in assets flowing into digital assets.
The conference underscored a bifurcating investment landscape where macro dispersion, geopolitical fragmentation, and technological transition are creating measurable alpha opportunities for adaptable allocators while simultaneously raising existential questions about traditional active management's viability in an AI-accelerated environment.
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